Else Didriksen was a beautiful but troubled teenager when she walked out of young J.P. Beaumont's life. She turns up thirty years later in the most harrowing of circumstances - her husband's mutilated body is found on board the charred remains of their commercial fishing boat. From Seattle's briny fishing enclave to the graceful estates of the white-collared high society, Beau dismisses no suspect as he tracks a killer whose vicious determination is fueled by a haunting, decades-old murder.